The present invention relates generally to the field of data storage and more specifically to identifying a tape of interest among a plurality of tapes.
The Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is a standard format for storing files in a tape. Vendors are involved in the development of software that realizes accesses to a tape conforming to the LTFS format via the interface of the file system. There are existing products which incorporate LTFS technology. Application programs which use a hard disk drive (HDD) can be used without modifications to the application programs as such. In the meanwhile, situations arise where: (i) an application program in a computing system intends to eventually use an HDD; (ii) the HDD may be in actual use; and (iii) an application program runs on an as-is basis by products incorporating LTFS technology. In these situations, a longer time than typically expected is required for the computer system to access files. In some cases, the access to the file may be timed out by the application program.